/ Michigan
The national treasure in Detroit
From Mitch Albom’s column about Ernie Harwell in the 20 September issue of the Detroit Free-Press:
Now Ernie makes the best of it, with grace, warmth and faith. Above all, faith.
“A church wants you to do the Sunday sermon,” his friend and attorney Gary Spicer said, sitting with stacks of mail and requests. I mentioned that would be a sure way to increase church attendance.
“Oh, I dunno,” Ernie answered, laughing, “They might throw tomatoes.”
It came out “tamay-tahs,” the soft Georgia coda to his words, easy on the ears, like cool tea to the lips. Ernie’s voice has always been soothing — he sounds like baseball would sound if the game could talk — but we forget it’s soothing mostly because Ernie himself is soothing. He is as gentle, open, kind and decent as anyone I have ever met. He was planning for a farewell speech at Comerica Park. Spicer told him there would be a long video and a salute, and then he’d be given the microphone… .
But be careful not to eulogize Ernie, because he’s not only still with us, he is entering a phase where he may be more precious than ever. “Maybe I can help somebody else,” he said, after we’d finished the ice cream.
Harwell has been an example of grace over every game he’s called, genteel, respectful, never in the way, accepting that he is there to paint the picture, but he doesn’t own the brush. He has that same approach to life and now to death. He says he has long believed that his life is in G-d’s hands, and he’s lived it that way.
And he will continue to do so. To the end. I have written a new book about faith, part of which chronicles a broken down church in Detroit led by a poor pastor who fights to keep it going. Ernie read an advanced copy of book a few weeks ago. He told me he liked it.
That was special enough. But do you know that on his way down to his big night at Comerica Park, Ernie first drove by that crumbling church, unannounced, in a rundown section of Detroit, and when he saw the pastor, he rolled down his window and said “Hi, I’m Ernie Harwell, I just wanted to meet you.”
Nobody looking. Nobody taking notes. Just something he wanted to do.
Michigan 38 Notre Dame 34
That’s Aaron and his father in the grass hula skirts and silk leis.
Michigan plays Notre Dame Saturday and Sunday night the Packers open at Lambeau Field vs. the Bears. Your host has no emotional need for the clerisy to approve his passion for football. It’s not that you may ignore anything related to it posted here. It’s not that the argument against football is specious and silly qua argument. To “football is just a game” the answer is “And oxygen is just a gas.” It’s not that there are moral and theological reasons to take time for the trivial. (See Stanley Hauerwas’ Taking the Time for Peace: The Ethical Significance of the Trivial in his book of collected essays titled Christian Existence Today. [When I studied with him in Boston, the first question Stan asked me was how to get Red Sox tickets.]) It is that there is a place here for those who are antipathic about football. It is a file labeled Too Bad.
Via Central Michigan University’s Media Relations podcast, Ernie Harwell’s speech at CMU, November 14, 2001. He’s introduced by CMU alumnus Dick Enberg. Part 1 of 4.
![from yesterday’s SI.com
DETROIT (AP) — Ernie Harwell, the 91-year-old Baseball Hall of Fame honoree and longtime broadcaster for the Detroit Tigers, said Friday that he has inoperable cancer. Harwell told The Associated Press he knows he’ll go through some painful days, but is in good spirits and appreciates the good wishes he’s received from hundreds of fans.
“I guess they [listeners] got used to me, good or bad,” Harwell said in a telephone interview from his home in suburban Novi. “It’s a great honor to be part of the family like that. … So-called fame is fleeting.”
Harwell said he began feeling ill this summer. He had surgery last month for an obstructed bile duct. Doctors found a cancerous tumor and several days ago advised him against further surgery. “They told us what the situation was,” he said. “We trusted their judgment.”
“As always, Ernie takes the positive side of it,” Detroit manager Jim Leyland said before the start of the Tigers game at Tampa Bay on Friday evening. “We’re all thinking of him. We all wish him well.” The Tigers organization said in a statement that Harwell and his family will be “in our thoughts and prayers as he faces a courageous battle against a serious illness.”
Harwell spent 42 of his 55 years as a broadcaster calling Tigers games, from 1960 to 2002. He said he has been “flattered” to hear so many people tell him about the role his voice played in their lives. As much as anything, the outpouring of support following news of his illness is a sign of the magic that radio sports still has for so many people, Harwell said. ”I think this response is an example of the impact of baseball and of the Tigers,” he said, adding whatever talent he may have, “God put me here.”
“Whatever happens, I’m ready to face it,” he said. “I have a great faith in God and Jesus.”
___________
A Detroit fan all my life, I grew up listening to the voice of Ernie Harwell. As a boy in White Sands on summer nights in New Mexico my radio pulled the powerful signal of WJR in Detroit to let me tune in to his broadcast of Tigers’ games. Audio of a talk Mr. Harwell gave at Central Michigan University, where he was introduced by CMU alumnus Dick Enberg, is forthcoming here in four installments.](http://5.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kpigszlMin1qz8fgxo1_500.jpg)
from yesterday’s SI.com
DETROIT (AP) — Ernie Harwell, the 91-year-old Baseball Hall of Fame honoree and longtime broadcaster for the Detroit Tigers, said Friday that he has inoperable cancer. Harwell told The Associated Press he knows he’ll go through some painful days, but is in good spirits and appreciates the good wishes he’s received from hundreds of fans.
“I guess they [listeners] got used to me, good or bad,” Harwell said in a telephone interview from his home in suburban Novi. “It’s a great honor to be part of the family like that. … So-called fame is fleeting.”
Harwell said he began feeling ill this summer. He had surgery last month for an obstructed bile duct. Doctors found a cancerous tumor and several days ago advised him against further surgery. “They told us what the situation was,” he said. “We trusted their judgment.”
“As always, Ernie takes the positive side of it,” Detroit manager Jim Leyland said before the start of the Tigers game at Tampa Bay on Friday evening. “We’re all thinking of him. We all wish him well.” The Tigers organization said in a statement that Harwell and his family will be “in our thoughts and prayers as he faces a courageous battle against a serious illness.”
Harwell spent 42 of his 55 years as a broadcaster calling Tigers games, from 1960 to 2002. He said he has been “flattered” to hear so many people tell him about the role his voice played in their lives. As much as anything, the outpouring of support following news of his illness is a sign of the magic that radio sports still has for so many people, Harwell said. ”I think this response is an example of the impact of baseball and of the Tigers,” he said, adding whatever talent he may have, “God put me here.”
“Whatever happens, I’m ready to face it,” he said. “I have a great faith in God and Jesus.”
___________
A Detroit fan all my life, I grew up listening to the voice of Ernie Harwell. As a boy in White Sands on summer nights in New Mexico my radio pulled the powerful signal of WJR in Detroit to let me tune in to his broadcast of Tigers’ games. Audio of a talk Mr. Harwell gave at Central Michigan University, where he was introduced by CMU alumnus Dick Enberg, is forthcoming here in four installments.
Michigan Radio’s Morning Edition host Christina Shockley speaks with sports writer John U. Bacon about the Detroit Free-Press allegations that Michigan’s football program forcibly requires its football players to work more than twenty hours per week. Heads should roll as a consequence of this story; they should roll in the editorial department of the Free-Press.
Robert Redford remembers Natalie Wood. Apropo of my previous post, do a close reading of what you see and hear at minute 4:00+. And ask me what this has to do with Harbor Springs, Michigan.
